Ballew-Berries

Thursday, April 18, 2013

So as many of you have now heard Madison is the first of the trio to take to potty training. We have been calling everyone and shouting it every chance we get in any type of public venue. With the bust, of the first attempt late last year, I was ready for them to wear diapers to kindergarten! Neither Jeremy or I would have put money on Madison being first based on that first round, but alas she is a girl, and we all know what that means!

So in case anyone reading isn't privy to this week's unexpected bout with potty training, I'll start from the beginning...The kids have been on a waiting list for a 2 day a week Preschool program. I have been quite anxious waiting to find out whether or not we would be allowed to register. Last week I received a phone call from the director and was pleased to hear there was room for all three! My excitement only had one pause when she asked if they were potty trained. I was reluctant to say no for fear of her answer. As my perceptions from our conversation were correct the kids would have to be "completely" potty trained before they start school. This came as a shock to me since when I toured the school I was told they would not have to be. :(

Well long story short, I now have a timeline! They will be potty trained by the first week in September in order for Mommy to have this much needed 5 hour break two times a week! I decided to let them each sit on the toilets before nap time that afternoon. I wasn't really expecting anything to happen, but at least we would have a starting point. Both boys were excited to sit, but very quickly got up and said, "All done". Madison however just sat there patiently sucking her thumb. All of the sudden out popped that thumb and the biggest smile came across her face. I said, "Did you go pee pee in the potty?" she was very excited and sure enough had made a puddle! After much praise and inspiration she got her candy and both boys looked on in awe as they both wanted to try again. After all the excitement, I finally got them all to bed. The same thing happened for several days in a row. So Saturday after nap we decided to upgrade to "Big Girl Panties" I put a timer on my shirt and set it for 20 minutes. Madison sat on the potty every time and had plenty of success. She was excited, Mommy and Daddy were excited, the boys were...lets be honest, jealous!

So like any proud parent would, we are rolling with it! Now, lets fast forward a couple days where I told her if she pooped in the potty she'd get a sucker, that stinker got out of her bed and went straight to the potty. After quite a few minutes that same smile crept up on her face! She was all excited about the poo poo in the potty and her pink sucker. She went straight back into her bedroom and showed off her sucker to Tyler, who of course wanted to try...

Well again a couple days later with shopping trips, gym visits, friend's houses, and outside fun-she had only had 3 accidents. This Mommy couldn't be prouder as I thought to myself, we did it, she's potty trained! LET ME BE CLEAR, I was wrong! I apparently jumped ahead of myself and was quickly snapped back in place today on our shopping trip to Costco! As we arrived, we made our normal stop by the bathroom, then we went to get some lunch. I rushed them all along so that we could make it back to the potty before anything happened. As I was loading them all up I smelled this awful smell. Just a whiff every now and then...after checking both the boys diapers I thought maybe it was the baby at the next table. We were heading to the bathroom and as always I asked if her panties were dry, to which she quickly responded, yeah. I reached in to get her out of the cart and it hit me! That smell!!! I said, very calmly, Madison do you need to go poo poo? "No" I felt her pants right when I picked her up... Now, as a first time mom, and with a first time experience...I'm sure the fear was visible on my face! A big shout out to the nice, UT lady in the restroom who offered to stand by the boys as I went to assess and attack the situation at hand! I grabbed the wipes and clothes out of the bag, I'm no boy scout, so my spare panties were in the bag in the car, and all I had was a pull up. Luckily I had a bag to put the mess in and a few wipes after cleaning up our pizza escapade for lunch. Here is where my dilemma began.

I've always thought how ridiculous when someone said they just threw away the panties after a blowout. Now, here I am with my first pooped in panties and I'm about to vomit it's so nasty, (it was a lot of poop as she hasn't been a regular since we started potty training)...I had her carefully step out of the pants then pulled the very full panties down off her feet. All the while she is chanting, Madison poo poo, Madison poo poo... My day is going wonderfully at this point! I made a quick decision since I only had one bag with me, everything went in it! So now I have an entire outfit in a bag with poop on each piece and it's stinkier than any diaper I've every changed. I get Madison all cleaned up, changed, and even back on the potty where of course my sweetheart went pee pee. Thanked the sweet lady who helped with the boys and we were on our way. Some people can get in and out of Costco in 10 minutes, at this point I believe we were clocking about an hour and we hadn't even begun our shopping! Needless to say, I forgot several main items and we finished shopping rather quickly only to end up back in the restroom one more time to ensure a safe ride home!

Now some of you may be wondering whatever happened to the bag of poop? Against my better judgement, I decided to rinse them so as to not pave the path of throwing away the panties after each accident! With the work that it took though, I completely understand why people would just throw them out! I have a new found respect for all Mommies who cloth diaper their babies, and will never again judge anyone who decides a pair of training pants is past its prime! Odds are good there will be worse experiences to come while potty training three kids at one time! At least I have a good idea at what I need and how to tackle what is sure to come my way! I will now continue on with potty training Madison after pushing this awful memory to the back of my mind (possibly even farther back than that whole round one experience)! Man Mommyhood is such a roller coaster of FUN times!

Sunday, March 31, 2013

I think after my 63 posts from October you all can gather that I LOVE fall and all the fun times it has to bring us. Here is what I think will be my last post of our fall fun. This year the kiddos were characters from the Wizard of Oz. We had a really hard time getting photo opportunities with all the excitement. All I can say is three kids is hard, throw in a cousin and its quite near impossible! Just wait until next year when we have to throw the baby into the mix! Here is the best we got!

These are our new furry friends who came trick or treating with us this year.

The kids had a blast with such big companions!

Dress up time!!

Don't I look pleased?!? Yes, this will be one of the photos I share later in his life!

Hope Jessica doesn't mind modeling with us.

I can't believe we got one with three of the four looking in one direction!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Not sure how I skipped over this but I haven't documented either of our vacations from this past summer. I came across pictures from our cross county road trip to South Carolina and Florida. This was in late summer of 2012. Lolli and I set off with the trio and Alana and headed to South Carolina for a few weeks. We had many adventures while there including adventures to the lake, ocean, zoo, parks, play grounds, spray parks and everything in between! Daddy was even able to come up for a weekend and spend some time with us in Charleston.

Dinner time at Nanas

Uncle Jared and the jailbirds

This day we went to a swimming area at Lake Murray. This place was really fun and the kids liked floating out in the water.

Sweet Alana

Tyler, Nana, Alana and Red

Kids playing on the porch yelling Hi to all the passing cars.

We got a pontoon boat for the day and had quite the adventure out on Lake Murray!

Alana and Aunt Da

Kids look quite at home on the boat! Anyone want to take us out?

My sweet little boater!

Sword fight!

Here we went out for some adult fun in Charleston. This was a fun rooftop bar!

This was at the ocean, I think close to Charleston...

Classic picture! Need I say more?

This ocean was perfect, it had a huge area where the kids could sit in shallow water and play in the sand. This was a beautiful place!

Hula dancer???

Beach surfing! I know we had some really cute ones of Madison but I cant find them...